Star Wars meets the B1G Tournament

By far, the best thing BTN does is The Journey. If you haven't already, go and watch the B1G Tournament episodes. The episode about the Michigan State game has some excellent shots. There was a comment about how the shot of Izzo walking out of the tunnel was reminsicent of Darth Vader. So that got the wheels turning...

Hmmmm. What can we extract from all of this? Michigan is 0-4 against the Buckeyes this season. During the first couple of games, Michigan was in the midst of its defensive crater. As you can see, in the second series in Columbus, Michigan had a much better possession rate. In Game 3, they gave up two power play goals (surprise!) and at least one odd-man-rush goal. The final game was pretty even, but Lavigne had a woofer or two. Also, Michigan has scored on Sean Romeo six times in four games. Eeeeeeck. So, where are we now?

Ohio State Preview

PWR

Corsi

PP%

PK%

Players Drafted

Skaters >.75 PPG

GAA

Save%

Michigan

7th

23rd

18%

76%

8

3: Marody, Calderone, Hughes

2.78 (Lavigne)

.910 (Lavigne)

Ohio State

4th

16th

24%

91%

3

4: Jobst, Laczynski, Weis, Joshua

2.08 (Romeo)

.925 (Romeo)

Ohio State is really good. They do not give up goals; they’re 4th overall in goals/game. To pair with that, they’re 11th in scoring goals (Michigan is 7th!). So, they put pucks into the net, they keep pucks out of the net, they convert on the power play, and they do not surrender goals on the penalty kill. Also, Sean Romeo is Cale Morris Lite. What is this, football?

So, what is there to do? I don’t know, man. It’s encouraging that Michigan was able to control play in the last couple of games down there. They’re going to need to play their best, most well-rounded game of the year. Also, as much as I disagree with the single-game semi-final format, hooray that Michigan doesn’t have to beat them twice!

[After THE JUMP: qualifying Michigan's most well-rounded game of the year and a look at PWR and relevant teams around the country]

Michigan has a 1-2-1 record against Wisconsin this year. They’ve dominated a couple of games that they lost due to trailing on the scoreboard and Wisconsin sitting back (Games 1 and 4). They also gave away a point in Game 2 with a goal in the final minute of regulation. Michigan won Game 3 thanks to great (!!) special teams play. So, what does that mean? Well…

Wisconsin Preview

PWR

Corsi

PP%

PK%

Players Drafted

Skaters >.75 PPG

GAA

Save%

Michigan

10th

18th

15%

76%

7

2: Marody, Calderone

2.61 (Lavigne)

.912 (Lavigne)

Wisconsin

24th

12th

18%

81%

7

2: Wagner, Frederic

2.89 (Berry); 2.97 (Hayton)

.903 (Berry); .894 (Hayton)

During their first series, Michigan was in the midst of their defensive crisis. They also were rotating goalies. Both of those issues seem to have mostly been sorted out. In their last meeting, Hayden Lavigne had his worst game of 2018, though.

Everything about these teams seems to be relatively even. Michigan's overall offense and defense are statistically slightly better than Wisconsin's. Wisconsin’s Corsi and special teams play are slightly better than Michigan’s. I would give Michigan an edge in net, though, especially since there seems to have been a sharp uptick in quality of play in the second half of the season for Hayden Lavigne; he has a .915 save % since January 5th.

[After THE JUMP: how to beat Wisconsin, a look at the rest of the conference tourney, and ways Michigan can stay in (or get bumped from) the big tourament]

Big Ten Tournament Scenarios

With eight days left in the regular season you may be wondering, what's next. Well that is very dependent on how things shake out over the next couple of games.

Currently Michigan sits in 7th in the conference at 9-7. With two games left, Michigan has a chance to not only grab 11 conference wins, but doing so would knock fellow 9-7 team Northwestern off the 6-line. Additionally, this could lead to other movement within the standings.

MSU is currently in fifth place in the conference at 9-6 with a game at 4 p.m. vs. Wisconsin. I don't need to tell you who to root for. But, if Michigan wins out and MSU loses any of their final three games, Michigan would move up to fifth place in the conference based on tie breakers. The teams are 1-1 head to head but Michigan has one less loss and a key tie-breaker is overall win percentage among tied teams. For Michigan State to finish ahead of Michigan they would need to win out and have Michigan lose at least one game. MSU also plays Maryland next Sunday.

The difference between the 5-6 seeds and the 7+seeds are important. The 5-6 seeds will get to play someone coming off a Thursday night game. For example: last year No. 6 Wisconsin played the winner of the 11/14 game. And although they lost, along with Iowa and Indiana - that was weird and I imagine you would definitely rather play a team that is tired.

Now, there are other possibilities as well. If Michigan falters, they could drop below Iowa in the standings. Iowa owns the tiebreaker. But MIchigan cannot fall below 8. So worst case scenario would be an 8-seed with a second day game vs. the 10-seed which would currently be Illinois. More importantly, this would hurt our NCAA tournament hopes/seeding. Lets hope we avoid this by taking Mitch McGary's advice and winning the game.

In terms of best case scenario, the 4-spot could be still in reach. This would get Michigan 2 byes. For this to happen, Michigan would need to win out to pass MSU and Northwestern and Maryland would have to lose out. Even if MInnesota loses out, they hold the tie-breaker. Maryland plays Rutgers Tuesday, so we will know our highest potential in two days.

Below is the chart for the BTT based off of Ken's ratings and Bill James' log5 formula (I am not familiar with this formula but assume it is complicated).

Michigan is the favorite as you can see, though a potential quarterfinals matchup with Indiana has them slightly less favored to make the semis than Wisconsin, who most likely will be facing Minnesota.

Why I picked what I did. Michigan is the best team in the league and with a chance at a high #2 seed or a #1 seed they still have someething to play for (I'm also a little biased). Minnesota, they have the most of anybody in the BTT to play for. They are not a bad team and I just have a strange feeling they find a way to pull it off, this seasons been crazy so why not in the BTT. MSU is a complete mess right now and I don't think a couple of days is going to straighten that ship enough to beat Iowa. Iowa can, and has showed, they can beat anyone in the Big Ten.

Most importantly I hope everybody for Michigan stays healthy, that is by far the most important outcome for the BTT. Everything else is just a B1G bonus.

Big Ten tournament tickets

I'm sure this gets asked every year, but could someone please shed some light on getting tickets to the tournament. I checked StubHub and there are tickets available, but I don't know if I want to buy single day tickets now, not knowing if we're going to be playing that day. If you go to Indianapolis, can you find tickets the day of? I figure we'll get a bye on Thursday, and either I'll go down for Friday, or Friday and Saturday.